Traditional medicine has a significant role in the African health care system for two main reasons. The first one is inadequate access to allopathic medicines and western forms of treatments. The majority of people in Africa cannot afford access to modern medical care either because it is too costly or because there are no medical service providers. Second, there is a lack of effective modern medical treatment for some ailments such as malaria or HIV/AIDS, which although global in distribution, disproportionately affect Africa more than other areas in the world.

There has been much documentation concerning materials used in traditional treatments in Africa. However, there is little evidence to show that traditional medicines are effective. Without this information, users of traditional medicine in Africa and elsewhere remain skeptical about the value of some therapies. This denies people the freedom to choose medicines that are potentially less costly and are more accessible. Another matter concerning traditional medicines is the need to understand the safety of these therapies. For these reasons, information about efficacy and safety of traditional medicines is urgently required. For the present special issue, we are inviting original research and review articles that discuss aspects of efficacy and safety of African traditional medicinal plants. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Recent studies on indigenous medicinal plants to fight against emerging and reemerging infectious diseases such as TB, HIV/AIDS, Chikungunya, and dengue fever among others
• Recent studies on indigenous medicinal plants to address noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity among others
• Phytochemistry of indigenous medicinal plants
• Development of novel standardization procedures for herbal extracts
• Identifying mechanisms of action of indigenous medicinal plants using in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/ecam/afri/ according to the following timetable: